Daniel I. Russell has been featured publications such as The Zombie Feed from Apex, Pseudopod and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. Author of Samhane, Come Into Darkness, Critique, The Collector Book 1: Mana Leak, Mother's Boys and the huge collection Tricks, Mischief and Mayhem, Daniel was also the vice-president of the Australian Horror Writers' Association, special guest editor of Midnight Echo and associate and technical editor for Necrotic Tissue.View My Complete Profile

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

The heavy hand of Smashwords

Well it was a good run while it lasted. The Collector will officially be taken off Smashwords following a complaint. See, there is an itty bitty line in the terms of service that states that books cannot be in serialised parts. This makes sense, as it would stop particularly fraudulent writers splitting a novel into say 10 parts and charging $2.99 for each one, costing you pretty much $30 for one book!

As The Collector was 100% FREE...I guess that it was allowed through, having reached part 6 with no problems at all and even getting into premium distribution.

But there's always one that has to spoil it, and following their complaint, I have been made to remove it.

The series has had over 2200 reads, which was beyond any expectations I had for my little contemporary fantasy piece.

So...where to go from here?

Ideally I'd like to release all 6 parts together, as well as the remaining unpublished parts, as a complete book. The Collector was always seen as a trilogy, with this being the first of three books. I never intended to start the second volume until the first was picked up, which never happened (boo!). After the interest and great reader reviews and ratings, I might try again. After all, times have changed.

Failing that, I might just be a complete hypocrite and release it myself. Already have some artwork in the works.

For now, I'm going to sit on it till Friday, take it down and think it over at the weekend. Hell, I'm open to suggestions, so if have any, email me at danielirussell@necrotictissue.com (as I believe the comment thing below is often knackered).

For those readers who are following the serial and have sent me some quite concerned messages regarding the recent events...don't worry. I'm sure our bowler hat wearing Collector will be back in your hands soon.